The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Twelfth Grade Kills (15 page)

“I haven’t found it yet, Dad. Any luck?”

Tomas shook his head. “I fear we may have to search the Slayer’s home.”

Vlad winced, the idea not sitting right with him at all. He hadn’t asked Joss for the journal yet. Mostly because he still wasn’t certain he could trust Joss a hundred percent. Plus, he was hoping he’d find it elsewhere, hoping like hell that he’d imagined it sticking out of Joss’s backpack that night in the clearing. He’d even asked Henry to poke around a bit, to see if he could find it at Joss’s house. But Henry’s search had turned up nothing.

“You do realize how important it is that we find my journal, yes? It could save us both, Vlad.”

Vlad sighed. “I know. Just ... just let me try a few more spots before we go raiding Joss’s bedroom, okay?”

After a long moment, Tomas nodded, and Vlad headed toward the door. When his fingers brushed the knob, Vlad turned back to his father. “I’m still not entirely sure why we’re looking for the journal. Exactly how will it help us stop Em and the trial?”

His dad lowered his voice, as if he was sharing a great secret with Vlad. “The journal was written on pages of very old text—text that can only be revealed by being exposed to blood or fire.”

Vlad thought back to Diablo and his ritual. He’d smeared the backs of some pages with blood and words had been revealed.

“I believe the details of a special ritual are contained within the pages. If we apply fire to those pages, I believe we will uncover exactly how to stop Em and all who might oppose us.” Tomas folded his arms in front of him, raising a stark eyebrow. “But first we must find the journal.”

Vlad nodded and made his way out the door. If what his dad said was right, it could mean the end to all of their problems. He and his dad could live out their days a happy family once more. They could stop Em, even stop the Slayer Society, and all would be well. They just needed that journal.

The entire walk to school was a fog, his thoughts focused on the journal and where it might be. He knew it was likely in Joss’s possession. After all, the last he’d seen of it, it had been in his backpack. But Vlad still didn’t feel right about breaking into Joss’s home. It felt dirty. It felt wrong.

As Vlad reached the school, his eyes were drawn to the sight of two very familiar girls, arguing at the top of the steps of Bathory High.

One in pink. The other in black.

Meredith and Snow.

Meredith had her nose scrunched, as if something didn’t smell very good. Behind her stood Melissa Hart and a handful of other semipopular girls whose names had slipped Vlad’s memory. “Oh please. Just look at what you’re wearing!”

Snow shook her head, calm, cool, collected. “I refuse to accept fashion advice from someone whose closet looks like Pepto-Bismol”.

“I’m just saying that Vlad’s behavior is pretty unpredictable. Maybe you should leave him alone. I mean, you don’t even know him.”

“I know him better than anyone at this school.” Snow glanced across the parking lot at Henry’s car, which was just pulling in. Vlad was suddenly glad he hadn’t bothered to wait for his best friend. This exchange was far more entertaining than anything on the radio. “Except for Henry, I mean.”

Neither girl had noticed Vlad. And Vlad liked it that way.

Meredith tossed her chocolate curls over her shoulder, her tone superior. “Face it. He’ll never go out with you, Snow.”

Snow stepped toward her then, and Meredith stepped back. Snow’s words were a hiss. “You face it, princess. I don’t need a boy crushing on me in order to feel good about myself. If Vlad doesn’t date me, that’s fine. If he does, great. But I’m not going to base my entire sense of self-esteem on whether or not I have a date to the prom.”

Meredith snorted. “I honestly don’t know what he sees in you.”

“Maybe it’s my charming sense of humor and ability to put up with crap from his ex-girlfriend.” With that, Snow opened the door and slipped inside.

And Vlad was left with something he’d never realized before.

Meredith didn’t know him at all. If she couldn’t see why he liked Snow, she had no idea who he even was.

Slowly, he made his way up the steps, toward her. When he stopped in front of Meredith, Melissa and the other girls flashed her knowing smiles before disappearing inside. Meredith brightened at the sight of him. “Morning, Vlad. How are you?”

“Strength.”

She blinked, the smile slipping from her face. “What?”

“Strength, Meredith. That’s what I see in Snow. Her amazing strength.” He held her gaze, his lips pursed.

Meredith shook her head. “I just want you to be happy.”

Vlad turned and opened the door. As he looked back at Meredith—at the girl he thought he loved before he knew what love was, he shook his head. “I am happy ... with Snow.”

V
LAD ROLLED OVER IN BED, trying to ignore his aching stomach and failing miserably. He���d already downed three blood bags on his way up to his room, and then later snuck downstairs and downed three more. But his appetite wasn’t satiated by the donated blood. It tasted still, stagnant, lifeless on his tongue. He wanted more.

Needed more.

He slipped from his bed and down the stairs, still dressed, as if he knew he’d be taking a walk later, and put his shoes on in the dark. As he descended the stairs, he heard his dad snoring quietly on the couch.

He moved down the steps and out the front door without making a sound, then headed up the street toward the park. What Vlad needed was a good, long walk, and then, once he’d exhausted himself, he’d fall back in bed, too tired to even think about how hungry he was.

A scent was on the air—one of adrenaline and spirit and blood. Vlad followed that scent into the park and, standing in the shadows, watched a woman making her laps around the track.

She was running at a steady clip, though Vlad had no idea why she thought it was a good idea to exercise in the middle of the night—even in this town. Her footfalls slapped the pavement in a rhythm that matched closely the rhythm of her heart. Vlad watched her as she rounded the bend, heading straight for him now. He stepped backward, deeper into the shadows.

He didn’t know what he planned to do. He only knew that she wouldn’t see it coming, that she would be the end to a means, that his terrible thirst, his unbearable hunger would be satiated at last.

He licked his lips as she approached, and just as she stepped within a few feet of him, Vlad looked at her, really looked at her.

She was a person.

A real, live person. With a family. With friends.

What was he thinking?

Her steps slowed as she caught sight of him. Her eyes widened in surprised fear. Alarm shot through her veins, both shaking Vlad and filling him with disgust. Disgust with himself for what he’d been about to do.

He forced a smile and said, “You should be careful out here. Bathory’s not as safe as you might think. Have a good night.”

Then he did what had seemed impossible only seconds before.

He turned around and walked away, his stomach rumbling in protest.

“Vladimir Tod?”

A word, four letters, shocked and foul, crossed his lips as he turned back to face the woman.

He wasn’t at all surprised to see her pulling a silver-tipped stake from the holster on her thigh. But he was surprised to see her whip into action and run straight for him without so much as a blink.

She raised the stake, and Vlad looked up at it, hating that stupid piece of wood, that thing that had caused him so much stress. It was a symbol, the stake. And to Vlad it was a symbol of hatred, of absolute refusal of peace.

It was also a distraction technique, because as Vlad was watching the stake, thinking quickly of a plan of defense, the Slayer woman whipped around, sweeping Vlad’s legs with a kick. Vlad fell backward, but caught his balance just before he fell. As he stumbled, she brought the stake forward. Vlad reached up in a blink, gripping her wrist, eyeing her down.

He could snap it. Snap the bone and cause her real pain. He knew it and, more importantly she knew it too. But she still wouldn’t stop, and her eyes slanted into a defying glare.

Vlad weighed his options—fight or flight—and in the end, he pushed her backward several yards, releasing her without harm, and turned to leave. It was over. Vlad didn’t want to fight. There would, if he and Joss didn’t come up with a solid plan of action, come a time when he would have to face the Slayer Society. But not now. Not if he had anything to say about it.

His stomach rumbled its protests. The woman’s veins were full of a delectable B negative, and it was calling out to him, taunting his thirst.

Behind him, he heard the woman’s feet running softly over the ground. She was coming at him again. She would not stop, would never stop. And as she got closer, the monster inside of him screamed with hungry delight. Fresh blood, enough to satiate his immense hunger, and it was being delivered to him by someone who probably deserved to be bitten.

A sudden jolt went through Vlad. The realization of what he was thinking, of what he was about to allow himself to do.

Pushing the monster back deep down inside, and without putting a conscious effort into his actions at all, Vlad moved. Fast. In blinding speed, he turned and approached the Slayer, spinning around, lifting his leg chest high. He kicked the Slayer back, sending her flying from him. He had time enough to notice that she was still gripping the stake when she hit the large oak across the park with full force.

She crumpled to the ground, unconscious and unbitten.

Another four letter word—a different one this time— crossed Vlad’s lips, but for a different reason. Because not only was Joss right about Slayers heading to Bathory ...

... they looked like regular people, which would make them impossible to pick out of a crowd. They could hide out in the open. And there would be a lot of them.

V
LAD WAS SITTING ON NELLY’S BACK STEP, listening to the sounds of night around him, punishing himself for having even considered feeding from the source. Forcibly. Without consent.

There was something wrong with him.

Yeah
, said that other voice—the one that only spoke when he was feeling ravenous-
something was wrong, and that something was that he was hungry. He was a hungry vampire. What else did he expect?

A little self-control. That’s for sure.

But he wasn’t just beating himself up over considering drinking from that Slayer woman in the park—or even over attacking her and knocking her unconscious. He was also waiting. Waiting for answers.

After he’d left the park, he’d returned to Nelly’s house. And as he’d placed his shoes inside the coat closet, he couldn’t help but notice something wrapped up in a plastic bag and tucked in the very back of the closet. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he’d peered inside the bag. What he found had shaken his world and brought a flood of questions to the tip of his tongue. Questions that only Otis could answer.

He’d paced the kitchen for almost an hour, his thoughts flitting from one strange equation to another, with nothing adding up in Otis’s favor. At last, with a deep breath, he walked out the back door, sat down on the step, and reached out with telepathy to his uncle.
“Otis, are you sleeping? ”

Moments later, Otis creaked open the back door and poked his head out. “What’s the matter, Vladimir, couldn’t sleep?”

He patted the step beside him. “Have a seat, Uncle Otis. There are some things I need to talk to you about.”

Otis nodded, the smile slipping from his face, as if he knew this were coming. He took a seat beside Vlad and they watched the night for a while. The stars were bright and shining, and the sky was so full of them that it almost seemed like there were too many stars in the sky, too much brightness in the world when Vlad’s thoughts were so dark and shadowed. Vlad glanced at his uncle and said, “I was attacked by a Slayer tonight.”

He could see Otis visibly tense, but his uncle’s tone remained as calm as could be. “Are you all right?”

Vlad nodded. He decided not to mention how close he’d come to draining the woman dry. There were, of course, far more important things to discuss. Things that had been plaguing Vlad ever since he’d opened the bag at the back of the coat closet. “Uncle Otis ... I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And some things you’ve told me over the years don’t quite add up.”

His uncle didn’t respond, merely folded his hands together and kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. It seemed to Vlad an act of contrition, like he were guilty of just about anything Vlad would accuse him of, and was a little bit relieved that he’d been found out.

Taking a deep breath, Vlad continued. “A few years ago, you told me that my dad had been a vampire for a hundred years before you made the change. Then a couple years later, you gave me a letter describing the day you were turned. You made it sound like you were both turned into vampires that day.”

Otis was very still, as if waiting for Vlad to force him to speak.

Vlad raised an eyebrow at his uncle. “So which story’s true?”

At first, Otis said nothing. But then he spoke—his voice hushed and raspy—and Vlad knew that Otis felt badly. About what, he had no idea. “Both, Vladimir. Both stories are true. But that doesn’t mean I should have shared either with you.”

“How can they both be true?”

“Tomas was made a vampire one hundred years before I was taken to the Bastille. At the time, I thought he was also human—I didn’t believe in such things as vampires back then. Like most humans, I was blissfully unaware of what lurks in the shadows of the night. Like most humans, I was a fool.” He swallowed hard then and, gathering his thoughts, said, “Your grandfather, Ignatius, was a cunning man, but he was also cruel. He’d made Tomas a vampire and used him as his slave, you see. Tomas was miserable, and so alone. He’s suffered, Vladimir. Your father has suffered more than anyone I’ve ever known.”